Aug. 7 (Bloomberg) -- Amancio Ortega, the septuagenarian
Spaniard who founded retailer Inditex SA, has bumped Warren
Buffett from his perch as the world’s third-richest person.

The 76-year-old tycoon’s fortune rose $1.6 billion to $46.6
billion yesterday, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires
Index, as shares of Inditex gained 3.8 percent to close at a
record. That places the owner of the Zara clothing chain above
the Berkshire Hathaway Inc. chairman, who has a net worth of
$45.7 billion and had ranked No. 3 on the index since its
inception March 5.

Ortega’s wealth has surged 32 percent -- $11.4 billion --
this year amid a market rout in his native Spain, where policy
makers are resisting pressure to formally request aid from the
European Central Bank. Inditex boosted profit for 12 straight
quarters by adding stores in emerging markets such as China
while reducing its dependence on its home country, where
unemployment hovers above 20 percent.

“Buffett’s holdings have done well recently, but not all
of them,” said Walter “Bucky” Hellwig, who helps manage $17
billion at BB&T Wealth Management in Birmingham, Alabama. Ortega
“has a more concentrated holding, and that implies more risk.
You may have these fits and starts between them going forward.”

Raul Estradera, a spokesman for Inditex, declined to
comment. Buffett, 81, didn’t return an e-mail message left with
Carrie Sova, an assistant.

Slim, Gates

Inditex shares rose in Madrid yesterday, joining a rally of
European stocks, after German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s
government backed the ECB’s plan to buy bonds from debt-racked
countries such as Spain. Berkshire Hathaway shares fell 0.5
percent in New York after increasing its cash hoard to the
highest level in a year as Buffett pared bets on consumer-products stocks. On Aug. 3, the company posted a second-quarter
profit that beat analysts’ estimates.

The Spaniard became Europe’s richest man on June 13, when
he passed Sweden’s Ingvar Kamprad, owner of retailer IKEA.
Kamprad, founder of the world’s largest furniture seller, is
worth $37 billion.

Buffett donated 22.1 million Berkshire Hathaway Class B
shares to charity on July 6, according to a filing with the U.S.
Securities and Exchange Commission. The shares are worth $1.9
billion at today’s closing price of $85.15 a share. Almost all
of the stock went to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

Giving Pledge

The billionaire pledged in 2006 to give the majority of his
fortune to charity and, after distributing about 20 percent of
his Berkshire holdings, now donates 4 percent of his remaining
shares each July. Buffett’s fortune has climbed 6.8 percent this
year, or $2.9 billion.

Prior to his pledge, Buffett held almost all of his net
worth in Berkshire Hathaway Class A shares. He owned 474,998 of
those shares in March 2006, according to the company’s proxy
statement. The shares would have been worth $60.7 billion as of
yesterday’s market close.

Buffett now owns 350,000 Class A shares and 3.8 million
Class B shares of Berkshire.

Buffett and Gates started the Giving Pledge in mid-2010 to
encourage the ultra-rich to commit to donate most of their
fortune to philanthropy. Since then, 81 families have signed it,
according to the initiative’s website.

“My wealth has come from a combination of living in
America, some lucky genes, and compound interest,” Buffett
wrote in a June 2010 letter. In agreeing to donate 99 percent of
his wealth, he said, “my family and I will give up nothing we
need or want.”

The Bloomberg Billionaires Index takes measure of the
world’s wealthiest people based on market and economic changes
and Bloomberg News reporting. Each net worth figure is updated
every business day at 5:30 p.m. in New York and listed in U.S.
dollars at current exchange rates.